


Five Times Marcus Woke Up Audrey (And the One Time She does It Back)

by Powderpuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 5+1 Things, Audrey just wants to sleep, F/M, Family, M/M, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Powderpuff/pseuds/Powderpuff
Summary: It’s not that Audrey doesn’t love her little brother. She does. And it’s not like she minds helping him with his problems.She just wishes he wouldn’t come to her about them at ridiculous times. (Or, Marcus is the irritating little brother we love in spite of ourselves)





	Five Times Marcus Woke Up Audrey (And the One Time She does It Back)

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my WIP folder for months. I had it all set up until the end, where my brain decided "water is wet!" was to be the ultimate thought. But I have pushed through, and though the end is still a twitch weaker than I'd like, I need to clean that folder out.   
> I absolutely headcanon Audrey Weasley as being Marcus Flint's older squib sister. I also headcanon him as being annoying and a little insecure about his talents, which leads him to wake her up at awful hours. I think she is patient about that sort of thing-any woman married to Percy would have to be.

**_Hogwarts_ ** **.**

“Oi, Audrey.” A shove.

“Mrr.” A roll over.

“ _Audrey!!”_ A whine this time, specifically pitched to be irritating.

A groan in response.

“ _AUD-“_

_“What!”_

“What if I don’t get my letter?”

A sigh, then Audrey moves over and indicates he sit down. Her half-shut eyes barely register him, dark outline against the darkened room.

“Well for one, you will get it. You can fly on a broom, can’t you? I can’t. And you turned Cupcake’s beak blue when you were about five, remember?” Cupcake, overhearing his name, gives a soft hoot from his perch.

“But what if- “The little worrywart.

“Snidget, if you don’t get your letter, it changes nothing. Mother and I will still love you. Hell, Mother might be ecstatic. We’ll deal with it as it comes, okay? Now go back to bed, you’ve got school in the morning.”

A grumble. “Fine.” And he skulks back to bed, with the knowledge that there will never be a problem Audrey can’t solve.

Audrey, wise in the way fifteen-year-old girls are wise, promptly goes back to sleep.

**_Quidditch._ **

_“_ Hey, hey Audrey.”

“No.”

“But Audrey-“

“ _No_.”

“Damn it Audrey!”

“Language.” She gives a resigned grumble through closed eyes. “What do you want.”

“What if I don’t make the quidditch team this year?”

Audrey groans. Only Marcus would think that was a reason to wake someone up. Loathing boys, particularly twelve-year-old ones with a penchant for sullen dramatics, she cracks open an eye.

“Then try the year after. Or sabotage the others.” 

She feels him brighten. “Do you think?” And Audrey realizes her mistake almost immediately.

“No! I was _joking_. Definitely don’t do that. Do you want more detentions? That’s how you get detentions. Just keep practicing over at the Puceys’, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Audrey approves of his friendship with Adrian Pucey. It means that someone else knows the trauma of being woken up at night for ridiculous reasons.

“And if I’m not?”

“Then there’s always next year. Now would you please, _please_ go back to bed? I’ll talk quidditch, and your chances, and whatever else-I’ll even run the statistics for you- if you just let me sleep.”

Marcus snorts. “Fine. Remember, you promised.”

Audrey grumbles, and tosses her blanket over her head. Preteens were the _worst._

****

**_Failure._ **

Audrey has known what was coming, so she is already awake and in the kitchen, making tea amidst the sounds of a summer storm.

When Marcus pads in, all angry muscle and tired, worried eyes, she understands immediately.

“Hey Snidget. Here, made you a cup.”

Marcus rolls his eyes at the childhood nickname, but lets it pass for once. “Thanks. Don’t see why I got to go back. Don’t need N.E.W.Ts for quidditch.” But Audrey is not going to have this fight again.

She looks at him sternly. “Because I’m not letting you out into the world without an education. And don’t you look at me like that. You know I’m right. What if quidditch doesn’t work out? You need a backup plan. We’ve discussed this.”

Marcus huffs, and drinks his tea. Curses on tyrannical older sisters. It does not occur to him to disobey, however.

They remain this way, listening vaguely to the roar of the storm-tossed sea, with the clock ticking away the silent moments between thoughts,

Marcus breaks it with a small _huff_. “I miss Mum. And Dad.”

Audrey’s eyes turn sad. “Yeah,” and her voice holds a sigh, “I miss them too.”

More silence, and they both have the same thoughts. Magnus Flint, rough and brash and fiercely protective of his family, who had left for London fourteen years prior and had never come home. Lucinda Flint, stern and severe and a little cold, but who loved as viciously as her husband, and had died the previous summer, leaving her family small and broken.

But at the least they had each other.

“Let’s go for a walk.” Marcus suggests. “It’ll be fun.’

Audrey looks outside dubiously. Rain is lashing the windows, droplets nearly big enough to bruise. Lightning flashes, a highlight to the cracking thunder shaking the house.

“It’s legal for me to do magic now, remember? Grab your coat, let’s go. Can’t sleep through this anyway.”

Some people crave the storm. Others just survive it.

 

**_Quidditch. (again)_ **

“Aud.”

“Is the house on fire? Then bugger off.” Audrey’s voice is muffled, coming from underneath her pillow.

But Marcus will not, and she knows it. “Why do you always wait till the middle of the night to have a crisis? Really, you’re impossible.”

“Ballycastle said three days. It’s the third day.”

“Marcus, “and her tone is exasperated and sleep slurred, “today is just barely today. It’s only five. Owls need to sleep too, you know. Not to mention we live in the middle of the Irish Sea and it’s always windy. The poor bird has a hell of an uphill battle, especially at this time of year. Calm your farm.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re practically a genius, get any job you like.” He huffs backward, staring at her ceiling, his brow furrowed.” What if they don’t accept me?”

“Then try for any other quidditch team. Ballycastle isn’t the only one, you know, even if it was dad’s favourite.”

But Marcus doesn’t want another team, and Audrey knows it. She also knows she isn’t getting back to sleep. She rolls her eyes in a resigned fashion. “Would it help at all if I got up and waited with you, which is obviously your purpose with this?”

His grin is cheeky. Audrey throws a pillow at him.

When his letter comes an hour later, he buys her breakfast.

****

**_Oliver._ **

“Audrey.”

Nothing.

“Oi, Audrey!”

A groan this time.

“Dammit Audrey!”

Finally, one bleary eye cracks open, took in the sight of Marcus looming, eyes on the verge of hysteria.

Audrey groans again, forced both eyes open. “What.”

“I think I like Wood.”

Audrey looks at him. Blinks. Blinks again. “Duh. You woke me up for _this_?”

“Yeah? I’m fuckin confused, alright? Least you can do is be supportive.”

“Fine, fine. You’re so damn annoying.” Audrey hauls herself out of bed, and follows Marcus into the kitchen where he has (very wisely) made tea. After she settles herself, gives an accusing look at the clock, and has drunk half her tea, she gives him a steady look. “Well, spill.”

So Marcus tells her about talking to Oliver the last few weeks and discovering they could, actually, get along; about the frequent pub meetups; and finally about the drunken kiss, after which he freaked out and apparated straight home.

“So naturally,” And her tone is exasperated, “instead of, you know, talking about it, you bolted. To me. At three in the morning. And I am, of course, expected to give you the right answer. Have you considered- now this is radical, but hear me out- talking to him about it when you’re both sober?”

Marcus stirs his tea moodily. ““I was hoping for more ‘ignore it and never talk to him again’.”

Audrey’s look is pointed. “My dear baby brother, have I ever advised you to ignore your problems?” Her gaze softens. “Look, if he kissed you back, chances are good that he is at least a little bit interested. So how about you go to bed, sober up, and owl him in the morning.  Go get coffee. Talk about it like adults. I believe in you.”

****

**_Revenge._ **

“Marcus.”

Nothing.

“Ahem.”

Nary a twitch.

_“Marcus!”_

And then he is up with a start, eyes frantic. Grumbling, Oliver turns beside him. “Wazz it?”

Marcus glares at Percy, who is standing above them, grinning. “ _What_ do you want, Weasley? And how did you get in my house?”

Percy blinks at him. “Why, through the door.” He says in surprised tones. “Your nieces were born a few hours ago. Wouldn’t you like to meet them?”

It takes less than fifteen minutes for the three of them to arrive at the muggle hospital and cram themselves into Audrey’s room; the babies are absconded with immediately, and Marcus looks at the one he snagged-Lucy- with a proud gleam; and a peculiar softness.

“Well Snidget, was it worth waking up for?” asks Audrey, tired, but pleased. She gets a half-hearted glare in answer, which she smugly interprets as a _Yes, of course, shut it._

“We decided that you and Ollie should be first, since these are your only nieces. Mum and dad popped by earlier, but everyone else will wait till tomorrow.” Percy smiles at Molly, asleep in his arms.

“I think I’ll convince them to wake _you_ up with stupid problems though.” Audrey gives a shudder. “Or maybe they’ll take after Perce and I, instead of their godparents.”

Marcus and Oliver give her twin shellshocked looks. Audrey grins innocently. “Oh, didn’t Percy tell you?”

Marcus and Oliver don’t stay long-work is a harsh mistress, and Audrey is exhausted.

Percy and Oliver are discussing something brief and inconsequential. Marcus goes to his older sister, who is admiring her handiwork. But he notices the trepidation in her eyes, and correctly identifies the cause.

“You’ll do great,” he tells her, quietly. “I mean, you did pretty alright with me.”

He then waves, and him and Ollie apparate away. Audrey falls asleep with her husband and children, with the comfortable realization that it would all turn out. After all, she _had_ done pretty well.


End file.
